


Renegade

by CptEmie



Series: Curiouser and Curiouser: The Displaced Saviors of Thedas [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe, Assumed Identity, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Darkspawn, Down the rabbit hole, Explicit Language, Julian swears more than Darcy did, POV Original Character, POV Original Female Character, Sibling Love, Sibling Rivalry, confusion and craziness, this magic shit is weird
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-04-27 13:03:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5049625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CptEmie/pseuds/CptEmie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It only took one misplaced lance to unseat Julian "The Hawk" Hawking from her horse during a routine jousting tournament at the fall Renaissance Faire. But when she comes to in a completely different place: chased by demented orc-like things, being pulled along by people who call her "sister", and headed via dragon to someplace called Kirkwall; she has to struggle to separate dream from reality. Is it a coma dream, or did she really just get dropped into the middle of a Choose Your Own Adventure novel?</p><p>The second installation in an AU series that follows twenty-first century women who get dropped into the spiral of craziness that is Thedas. </p><p>As with its sister story "One Fell Swoop", depictions of violence are definitely there, but not necessarily graphic. And Spoilers! Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers!<br/>Tags will be diligently edited as I go along. Thanks for reading!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Ran

“Sweetheart? Darling you’ve got to get up.” A set of insistent hands shook Julian’s eyes open. The woman shaking her had a shock of elegant (if frazzled) white-gray hair; and the two faces beside her were painted with the same distressed worry as the elder woman.

“Come on,” the man gripped her hand and tugged her up onto her feet. “The darkspawn aren’t going to wait for you to get your hair neat again.” His voice had an insolent drawl, thick with a lifetime of being overly aggressive to hide any kind of vulnerability.  _You must be a youngest child,_  Julian thought, memory temporarily slipping to her own brother.

She was about to ask what had happened when she fully heard the man’s sentence. “Darkspawn?” She asked, blinking up at him.  _Christ, what is he, a giant? He’s got to be a foot and a half taller than me!_

“Darkspawn.” He repeated, as though she were an idiot. “Big? Smelly? Murderous tendencies? Burnt down our entire village?”

His eyebrows knitted together grumpily when she shrugged in confusion.  _What in the hell is he talking about? Some new gimmick they added to the Faire this year? And who are these people anyway? I thought I knew everybody working this weekend…_

“Oh, Maker,” the other women gasped in unison, hands flying to their mouths.

The younger woman put one hand to her head and Julian flinched. “What are you doing?” She asked, putting up a warning hand.

“Checking you for a concussion,” she said with a matter-of-fact huff. “Now hold still.”

“Look,” Julian dodged out of her grip. “It’s sweet of you to care and all but…” she waivered on her feet:  _Maybe I do have a concussion? It wouldn’t be the first time…_  “But I’ll just go back to my tent and have my squire take a look, okay?” She turned to go, finding no field, no tents, and no arena.  _Where the fuck did I land – Idaho?_  There was no kind of landscape as far as the eye could see – just gray-brown dirt and dead trees rolling over small hills that went on forever.

The man was nearly rolling on the ground laughing. “Your  _squire_?!” he barked. “Oh, excuse us,  _Ser_  Hawke.” He couldn’t stop, he was practically in tears from laughing. “Maker, you had better mean Bethany, because I’ll club you with my greatsword if you were talking about me.”

“Not now, Carver,” the older woman batted his arm harshly and he put up his hands in resignation. “We have to keep moving.” She leveled her gaze on all three of them, starting with the man – Carver – and working her eyes steadily over the younger woman – Bethany – and landing on Julian. “If you’re quite finished?” She asked, with a tight purse of her lips.

“Come on,” Bethany and the elder woman started off towards the next hill and Carver moved to follow, but Julian stayed stark still. She tried to roll over everything she could remember before waking up a few minutes ago, but there wasn’t much:

The usual pomp and circumstance of the Faire. The heralds announcing the joust. The puny little kid they had appointed to be her squire for the weekend who could barely lift her armour, let alone help her strap it on. The joust itself; carefully choreographed and laid out to make sure they all stayed safe. Except for the last hit. She’d taken it too close to the chest, and the wary hand she reached up now fell into the fist-sized dent in her breastplate with ease. She’d been knocked off her horse – violently, if memory served – and everything after that was blank. After that, she’d woken up in the gray-brown dirt with three unfamiliar faces hanging over her.

Her shield was lying in the dirt at her feet, looking the same as always, sword faithfully sheathed on her hip. Her armour was the same as always, but for its new dent.  _That’s going to have to be replaced_ , she thought ruefully. She hated replacing bits of her armour. It was much too expensive and much too much of a hassle on short notice.

The three figures that had strolled away from her stopped dead in their tracks. “Sister!” She heard the younger woman’s voice call. “Time to get back on your feet!” From just over the little hill, Julian saw a half dozen gruesome, blackened, grizzled figures lunge out from behind a little gathering of wizened trees. “Sister!” The voice called again, and this time Julian realized that the woman – Bethany – meant _her_.

 _Sister?_ Julian barely had time to wonder at the word before she scooped up her shield and drew her sword. _This is possibly the most bizarre and unsafe stunt the Faire has ever pulled_ , she grumbled, running up the incline to meet them.

Carver the Giant was slicing through the demonic-looking gremlins. Actually hacking _through_ them, cutting them down to the ground in their tracks. Bethany was raining down fire and brimstone, hands actually raised up to the skies, swinging an enormous walking stick – _Is that supposed to be some kind of enchanter’s staff?_ – in her right hand as she directed enormous fireballs in the direction of the creepy crawlies. _What the fuck?_

But the next thought didn’t have time to register. One of the things was hurtling itself at her, growling and snarling, foaming at the mouth. Pure instinct took over, and Julian was ramming her sword into the thing without hesitation. It hiccupped inelegantly, writhing on the tip of her blade, and she withdrew the folded steel only to drive it in harder a second time. She was gaping at it when it fell at her feet, the expectation that it was an extra in a body suit melting away instantly. This _thing_ , whatever it was, was certainly not a sanctioned attraction. Whatever it was, another one was now charging the woman with the white-gray hair.

“Mother!” Bethany screamed – an attempt at a warning.

But Julian got their first, wheeling around and throwing her shield in front of the woman’s torso, sinking her sword deep, deep, deep, into the leathery black skin of whatever it was. Its blood was as black as its skin, and it whined an almost canine-like yelp as it crumbled. Grateful hands found her shoulders, and the woman was reaching up into her hair to rub her scalp like a mother congratulating a child. “ _Maker_ ,” the woman breathed, heaving a sigh of relief.

“We have to keep going.” Carver was suddenly next to them (towering over them, really), hooking one enormous hand around the elder woman’s elbow and tugging her forward. When Julian didn’t move, he looked uncommonly exasperated. “Jules,” he sharpened his leer. “Let’s go.”

 _How the fuck does he know my name? And how the fuck is he calling me ‘Jules’? No one but dad calls me that._ She stood her ground, feeling ineffectually tiny at only five-foot-two, and sneered back. “Not until you explain what the fuck is going on,” she insisted.

“That ogre must have hit you harder than we thought,” he shook his head and shoved her towards Bethany and the elder woman, who were already walking on. “Darkspawn, Jules. They’re darkspawn. Remember Lothering? Remember running for our lives? Remember how we’re _still running_?”

“No,” Julian said simply. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. And somebody’s got to tell the Faire runners how fucking dangerous those things are—”

“Shut up,” he grunted, shoving her forward again. “We don’t have time to deal with your amnesia crap, Juliet. Just keep walking.”

She stopped dead in her tracks. “My name is Juli _an_.”

“Andraste’s tits,” he stopped, stooping to look her in the eyes. “It’s Juliet. Juliet Hawke. The Blight overwhelmed our village, and now we’re running for our lives with no particular destination in mind. Okay? Now keep moving.”

He turned to leave again, but she caught his arm. “It’s Julian Hawking,” she corrected. “And I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.”

“Bethany!” He screamed, almost snarling in frustration. “You’re the one who actually likes her. _You_ deal with her.” He stalked away, soon replaced at her side by the younger, sweet-faced woman.

“Concussion, huh?” She placed one hand to Julian’s forehead and a pulse of blue blinked to life under her palm.

“Whoa!” Julian ducked away from her, holding up her sword in a defense born of pure instinct. “What the fuck?”

“Calm down,” Bethany stepped forward again, ignoring the sword, and lying her hand across Julian’s brow. “I’m just checking.” She frowned a little and shrugged her shoulders. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Jules. Now, come on.”

“Please,” Julian caught her wrist in two fingers, her gut telling her that this woman would be more helpful than the grumpy giant. “One second I’m getting knocked off my horse in the arena and the next I’m waking up…here…wherever here is. I just want an explanation.”

“Oh, Juliet,” Bethany shook her head. “That ogre did a number on you.”

“Stop it!” Julian snapped. “He called me that, too. Juliet. My name is Julian.”

“Darlings?” The elder woman called, perched on the crest of the hill.

“One minute, Mother,” Bethany shouted back, and then turned to Julian. “Are you calling purpose, or do you honestly not remember any of us?”

“I have absolutely no idea who any of you are,” Julian could not have looked more earnest if she’d tried.

“Well,” Bethany patted her shoulder in what was probably supposed to be a comforting gesture but only came off as patronizing. “I’m your sister. Bethany. The annoying, cranky one is Carver. Our brother. And that’s our mother.” She looked into Julian’s face for any sign of recognition, but finding none. “I can explain more when we get somewhere safe. For now, you at least seem to remember how to use your blade, so just concentrate on that. See a darkspawn, kill it. Simple as that.”

Julian swallowed. She got knocked off her horse, and was either dead or in a coma. That was the only explanation. She was either in some bizarre hallucination of a coma dream, or this was the weirdest incarnation of heaven/hell/whatever that she’d ever heard of. “Those…are darkspawn?” She asked slowly, edging a nearby corpse with the tip of her sword.

“Yes,” Bethany nodded.

“Sure,” she shrugged slightly and rolled her neck, feeling two satisfying _pops_ in her neck. “Sure. Darkspawn bad, sword good.”

“Good,” Bethany nodded. “Now, can we get going? I don’t fancy a rogue Templar running into us on the road along with any more of those blighted things.”

“Lead the way,” Julian shrugged again and Bethany headed into a jog to catch up to the others.

 _Coma dream._ She thought with a grunt. _That’s got to be it. Too many western fantasy novels combining to make the craziest hallucination my brain could possibly come up with._ And then a sting gripped her stomach. _Dad must be freaking out_ , she pursed her lips at the thought. _If I’m in a coma, then there’s no way Dad isn’t suing the shit out of the Faire runners and freaking out in the hospital._ The very thought hitched in her throat. They’d had more than their fair share of freak accidents in the last year. This couldn’t be fun for him at all.

“Are you alright, sweetheart?” A hand – elegant, just like the rest of this woman – swept lovingly over Julian’s hair and a reassuring smile graced the older woman’s face. _Poise, that’s what it is. Elegance and poise. Even while running away._

“Just having a hard time…remembering…” Julian shot Bethany a tiny glance and she nodded.

“We’ll talk it out once we get somewhere safe,” the woman – the mother – promised.

“Darkspawn bad, sword good,” Bethany murmured to her as Julian passed them to join Carver at the front of the group.

This proved even truer when another knot of the things found them over the next hill. Four or five of them fell at Julian’s feet with relative ease, and something in her felt almost _satisfied_ at the sight. Training with a practice sword was old hat now, tilting a lance was nearly second nature. But this? Actual combat? There was something…primal about it that really twisted her gut in all the right ways.

“Two more!” She heard Carver shout, and sure enough they were jumping at her. Julian ducked, using her already short frame to her advantage, bracing her shield over her head so that one rolled right over her and fell flat in the dirt. Its twin stumbled on the crumpled figure in the dirt, and Julian couldn’t hold back the animalistic grunt that ripped through her when she bared down on them. _Add to list of things that turn me on_ , she thought ruefully. _Melee combat._ And then her mind flashed back to her first training sessions on the Faire grounds almost fifteen years ago, and she punctuated the thought with: _Not really a surprise. But add it to the list._

They were jogging up another hill when they heard new sounds of clanging – the roar of darkspawn and the shouts of a male and a female voice above the howls. Another knot of the things was attacking a pair of people in full armour, and Carver and Julian bolted forward to help. Julian noticed, with increasing interest, the almost biblical downpour of fire whenever a new set of the things emerged. She shot a glance back at Bethany, and saw the younger woman nursing a twisted look of concentration, staff raised into the air.

_If this is a coma dream…comas are kind of awesome._

Half of this batch fell in flames, and the other half were cut down by the combination of swords. But now Julian could see why “Darkspawn bad” was part of the truth of what was going on. Of the pair they had come across, one was a surly man in showy, heavy armour. He barked something at Bethany that sounded like ‘prostate’, and all Julian could really make out from the situation (and Carver’s hulking sneer) was that he was threatening her. Threatening this woman who had been kind to her, and she somehow already, inexplicably liked. “Play nice!” Julian heard herself bark, striding forward to place herself between Bethany and the new man. “Do we have a problem?” She glared up at him, knowing full well that she didn’t cut a very intimidating figure, but hoping that adding her voice to Carver’s would help at least a little.

“The Order dictates…” he was mumbling, almost wheezing. He was injured. Badly, if the strained purple veins in his neck and face were any indications.

Through snippets and context clues, Julian gathered that this was a married couple, and that the man had been bitten by one of the darkspawn. _Vicious little bastards_ , Julian thought, as the man crumpled against his wife. “Wesley, dear, they saved our lives. The Maker understands,” she heard the woman say.

Carver was urging them to move on. Bethany was echoing the sentiment. And Julian had to agree, really. _Vivid fucking dream, starting to kill people off. Seems a little drastic, but my imagination always did like a bit of conflict early in the story. This place is fucking brutal._ She caught herself mulling everything over as they rounded another clearing.

Another clearing that was full to the brim of howling, snarling, charging darkspawn.

There was not enough stamina in the world for this onslaught. Add to the fact that – as much fun as melee combat was turning out to be – she didn’t have _near_ the right kind of training for this. Fencing tournaments and training rooms were nothing like slamming your shield into a weirdly strong demon-orc- _thing_. She was flagging, watching enviously as Carver and Aveline – that’s what she had said her name was – rallied over and over again. One of the things dove at Bethany and Julian rolled just in time to knock it off its feet and stab it thoroughly. Another one turned on the older woman and Bethany threw a fireball straight at its face. But they just kept coming. There was no end to them.

And then a giant fucking _ogre_ crested the hill.

“What the everlasting _fuck_?” Julian heard herself breathe. The thing was enormous. It had to be two stories tall. And it met every description of an ogre that every fairy story and adventure tale had even laid down. Under the baseline of terror that flooded her gut, Julian felt something twist inside her. Something like determination, or purpose, or hell, it might have been glee. But whatever it was, it filled her lungs full and hand her crashing forward with a manic little giggle. _Glee. Definitely glee._

The ogre took almost all of their attention, but in the end, it was Julian who got the final blow. As its knees startled to buckle, she jumped up and caught its knee under her toes, propelling herself up its gigantic torso and giving her the leverage she needed to sink her blade right into its heart. She held on for dear life as it went down, hoping desperately that she wouldn’t get bucked off. And when it crashed to the ground she found herself kneeling on its chest like Arthur holding Excalibur in its great stone sheath.

_Definitely glee._

But they kept coming. And kept coming.

Until the dragon.

 _A fucking dragon._ The giggle bubbled up in her again and she sighed audibly. _Comas are awesome. Comas are the fucking coolest. I want to be in a coma forever_. Forgetting the danger all around her, she watched in awe as the beast swooped down from the top of the hill where it had landed, breathing a torrent of fire at the darkspawn until they retreated with yelps and groans. It landed a few yards away from them with a screeching howl, swiping a few stragglers away with its tail and grabbing one up in its indomitable claws. Julian’s jaw fell open it blatant admiration. _A fucking DRAGON._

And then, impossibly, the dragon shrank into a woman. An old woman with snow white hair and some kind of headdress that ended in red wraps that formed her hair into great, threatening horns. “Neat trick,” she heard herself say out loud.

The woman only laughed. “Well, well. What have we here?”

Behind them, Julian heard the sound of armour on stone as Wesley crumpled against the nearest rock face. Bethany and Aveline were at his sides, their elder companion not far away. Next to her, Julian felt the enormous shadow of Carver’s presence. Wesley’s skin was pale, purple-blue veins standing out even worse than they had been before, breath coming in nothing but short, sharp barbs. Aveline was bent over him with a slack jaw and something desperate in her eyes. Bethany was at her side, saying something that Aveline apparently did not want to hear.

“Where’d you learn how to turn into a dragon?” Julian asked, unable to contain the question.

“Perhaps I am a dragon?” The new woman was smirking pleasantly, striding towards them with unparalleled confidence. “If so, count yourself lucky. The smell of burning darkspawn does nothing for the appetite.” She leveled her eyes on Julian. “If you wish to flee the darkspawn, you should know you are headed in the wrong direction.

“So you’re just going to leave us here?” A hint of desperation tinged Carver’s voice.

“And why not?” The woman looked to the horizon for a long moment before turning back to them. “I spotted a most curious sight: a mighty ogre, vanquished! Who could perform such a feat? But now my curiosity is sated and you are safe…for the moment. Is that not enough?”

“We won’t be able to get through the things on our own,” Julian felt the words tumble out of her mouth before she could stop them. Something deep inside her was buying into this weird dream-fantasy _far_ too easily.

“They are everywhere, or soon will be.” The woman had a strangely smug tone, as though she was taunting them. “Where is it you plan to run to, hmm?”

“We’re going to Kirkwall,” Carver said immediately. “In the Free Marches.”

“Kirkwall?” The woman was smirking again. “My, but that is quite the voyage you plan. So far, simply to flee the darkspawn.”

“Any better suggestions?” Julian snarled. Dragon or no, this woman was getting on her nerves. “Maybe a nice thatched _hut_? Maybe a seaside villa?”

That earned her a throaty laugh. “Oh, you I like. Hurtled into the chaos, you fight…” she leaned in to Julian, peering into her eyes – almost through her. “And the world will shake before you.” She stared Julian down, and Julian felt her muscles tense, eyes narrowing. “Is it fate, or chance?” The woman mused. “I can never decide.” They never took their eyes off of each other. “It appears fortune smiles on us both today. I may be able to help you yet.”

“There must be a catch.” Julian’s lip twitched. She could hear Wesley groaning behind them, and something inside her told her ‘ _too easy_ ’.

“There is always a catch,” the woman agreed, with another laugh. “Life is a catch. I suggest you catch it while you can!”

“Should we even trust her?” Carver’s voice came from somewhere over her left shoulder. “We don’t even know what she is.”

“I know what she is,” Aveline’s voice rose up. “A Witch of the Wilds.”

“Some call me that,” the woman nodded. “Also Flemeth. Asha’bellanar. An ‘old hag who talks too much’. Does it matter? I offer you this: I will get your group past the horde for a simple delivery to a place not far out of your way. Would you do this for a ‘Witch of the Wilds’?

“Roast a few more darkspawn and we’ll do anything you want,” Carver told her flatly.

“Sadly, my charity is at an end,” the woman was still leveling with Julian. “There is a clan of Dalish elves near the city of Kirkwall. Deliver this amulet to their Keeper, Marethari. Do as she asks with it and any debt between us is paid in full.” She turned, finally moving her eyes from Julian’s. “Before I take you anywhere, however, there is another matter…” She reeled on Wesley and Aveline sprang up.

“No! Lean him alone.”

“What has been done to your man is within his blood already,” the witch – Flemeth – told her flatly.

“You lie!” Aveline strengthened her grip on her sword.

“She’s right, Aveline. I can feel the corruption inside me.” Wesley’s voice was half what it had been when they met. His face paler, his veins even more pronounced.

“Can’t be reversed?” Julian asked, eyes steady on the witch.

“The only cure I know of is to become a Grey Warden.” The witch was matter-of-fact.

Aveline’s face fell: “And they all died at Ostagar.”

“Not all,” Flemeth shook her head. “But the last are now beyond your reach.”

Aveline knelt back at Wesley’s side, in time to grip his hand while he groaned. “Aveline,” he murmured. “Listen to me.”

“No,” she held his eyes, face serious but shoulders shaking. “You can’t ask me this. I won’t.”

“Please,” he tried to sit up. “The corruption is a slow death. I can’t…”

And then, for some entirely inexplicable reason, Aveline looked to Julian. Eyebrows raised in question, silently asking for help. Julian felt her insides clench, and entertained the thought that maybe this dream wasn’t so awesome after all. “He’s your husband, Aveline,” she said finally. “It’s up to you.”

On the list of things that broken her heart, watching Aveline drive her husband’s dagger between the plates of his armour was number four: directly under the deaths of her mother, sister, and brother. An involuntary glance backward at the three people behind her caught her heart in her throat.

“Without an end,” Flemeth’s voice punctuated the silence. “There can be no peace. It gets no easier, but your struggles have only just begun.”

They looked to each other – Aveline, Julian – the elder woman and the witch – Bethany and Carver. No one knew what to say. Or if they did, they were keeping it to themselves.

 _Coma dream, you are a fucked up place to be,_ she rolled the thought over and over, and then decided to go with it. “So,” she stood and turned to the witch. “You can get us to Kirkwall?” _Wherever the fuck Kirkwall is…_

“I hope you are made of sturdy stuff, my dears,” Flemeth looked between them all. “And that you are not afraid of heights.”

With a mountainous swirl of white and purple smoke, Flemeth stretched and inflated over and over and over again, until the enormous dragon from before stood in front of them. It nodded to them courteously, then bowed its head to allow them to clamour onto its back.

 _Coma dream, you are fucked up. But you are also AWESOME_. Julian thought, slinging her arms around the dragon’s great neck. Bethany and Aveline were holding on to the crook of one wing, Carver and the elder woman onto the other.

Without warning, the dragon leapt into the sky.

And Julian let out a whooping shout.

_I’m riding a fucking dragon._


	2. Under Pressure

The flight may have been swift, but the slow, torturous boat to Kirkwall had Julian fidgeting constantly. While Carver and Aveline prowled around the deck, the mother – Leandra – sat in a far corner picking at her sleeves and sighing. Bethany sat curled in the farthest nook of the hold with Julian, whispering as quietly as she could.

“I can’t believe you can’t remember  _any_ of us,” she was shaking her head. “Something’s got to be there, still. Nothing about Lothering? Or Father? What about the time I set your hair on fire when I was five?” She was twisting her hands, keeping her face down in a fleeting hope of not betraying the sting that her own sister didn’t remember her.

“Nothing.” Julian shook her head. “I’m telling you, I was in a completely different place with completely different people until I woke up in that clearing with you three standing over me.”

“That’s just not possible.”

A flash crossed Julian’s eyes and she tugged at the collar of her undershirt, armour thankfully discarded at her side. “Does you sister have this?” She asked, exposing a palm-sized tattoo of a bundle of roses just over her heart.

“Sweet Maker…” Bethany gasped. “No…no…she doesn’t.”

“Do you believe me now?” Julian’s eyes were pleading much more than her voice was. “At least a little?”

“This is extraordinary…” Bethany reached two fingers up to touch the flowers. She was a bare half inch away from Julian’s skin before she stopped herself, realizing it was probably wholly inappropriate.

“Go ahead.” Julian shrugged. “If I wanted to hide it, I wouldn’t have gotten it above my tit.”

Bethany laughed and shook her head, stroking two fingers lightly over the long-imbedded ink. “Remarkable,” she murmured. “I’ve never heard of anything like this. You look just like her. Sound just like her.” She was staring down on Julian’s face, scrutinizing in wonder. “Although, she never had a scar like that,” she pointed at the thick white line in the crook of Julian’s neck. “Or that tattoo. And actually,” she shifted her eyes up and down Julian’s face. “Your eyes are a slightly different colour, now that I’m next to you.”

“So,” Julian shifted to sit up straight. “What in the hell could have done this?”

“I have no idea.” Bethany lifted her hand to her mouth absently, tapping her thumbnail against her teeth. “The only thing I can think of is some kind of spirit magic – bringing you here and somehow switching you out with Juliet right under our noses. Which is improbable at best and, in all likelihood, impossible.” Another tap of her thumbnail. “Because we were with you the whole time. It’s not like you went away and came back as someone different. One second you were knocked on the ground by an ogre punching you in the chest – nice job surviving that, by the way – and the next you were waking up without any clue as to where we were or  _who_  we were.”

“Punched by an ogre?” Julian raised her eyebrows in a huffing laugh. “Your sister sounds like a piece of work.”

“Oh, what am I going to tell Mother?” Bethany’s face fell into her knees, hand dropping by her side. “She’s going to be heartbroken. First Father and now Jules.”

“My dad must be going crazy,” Julian ran her fingernails gently up and down Bethany’s arm in a rather lame show of comfort. “We lost my mom and my step-siblings in a car accident last year. If I’m here, I guess I must be in a coma…or missing…or something like that.”

“Or dead,” Bethany murmured, without thinking.

And then the thought struck both of them at once.

“Do you think it’s possible?” Julian breathed. “If I fell so hard I…I don’t know, maybe cracked my skull in my helmet somehow? Or broke my fall with my tailbone and split an organ? Cracked my spine weirdly?” The thought made her shudder. Jousting was far more dangerous than she liked to admit. “And your sister…well…she got punched by an ogre…”

“Andraste watch over us all.” Bethany looked like she was about to cry. “It’s not possible. Two people switching places like that? It can’t be possible.”

“And yet,” Julian shrugged a little. “Here I am.”

“Yes, you are.” Bethany nodded slowly. “But – if you are who you say you are, and you came from where you say you came from, and you don’t remember us or have any way to get back to…you know, wherever – why did you come with us? Why did you get on the boat?”

“Darkspawn.” Julian told her matter-of-factly. “I went with you because giant demon animals attacked us, and you and Carver seemed to know how to get past them. I mean, what was I going to do: stay there and get eaten?”

“Fair point,” Bethany conceded. “But why go any further?”

“Well, dragon ride, for one.” Julian laughed at herself, almost not believing her own childish impulse. “How could I pass that up?”

“The boat?” Bethany prompted, a thin veneer of anxiety darkening her eyes.

“Well, what the hell else was I going to do? I have no idea what the fuck’s going on and…” she glanced over at Leandra, and then back to Bethany. “I mean, I like you guys. You seem like good people. And you kept me safe and all. I don’t know – it seemed like a good idea at the time.” She bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut with a groan. “Of course, now I’m  _really_  screwed and still have no idea how to get back to my dad.”

“I guess…we’ll work on it. I’ll start some research when we get to Kirkwall, if I can get my hands on any arcane books, or texts on theoretical spirit magic.” She laid one hand gently on Julian’s forearm. “Until then…I don’t know. We’ll have to explain everything to Mother and Carver.”

“Do you think they’ll believe us?”  _Good, and my voice cracks like I’m a scared little kid. What’s next, am I going to cry? Fucking hell…_

“I don’t know,” Bethany admitted, rubbing an absent-minded circle on Julian’s wrist with her thumb.

“Do I really look like her?” Julian tilted her head. “Like Juliet?”

Bethany nodded, all solemnity and candor. “You could practically be her twin.”

“Maybe, then…”  _Good lord, am I really going to suggest this?_  “Maybe you could…you know…teach me? Show me how to be like her?”  _This has got to be my stupidest idea ever._  “I mean – if they’re not going to believe us anyway?”

“You want to lie to them?” Bethany brought her hands back up to her mouth and started gnawing uncomfortably on both of her thumbnails. “You actually want me to lie to my brother and Mother and pretend that you’re Juliet?”

“What choice do we have?” Julian’s shoulders dropped in resignation. “Either we pass me off as your sister, or we tell Leandra and Carver that Juliet is probably dead and she somehow got replaced by a middle-American Renaissance Faire re-enactor.”

“I don’t know what that means.” Bethany pointed out with another tense bite to the nails.

“It means…oh fucking hell, Bethany, I don’t know what it means. But we barely even believe this ourselves. How are  _they_ going to react?”

“Badly.” Bethany admitted. “Very, very badly.”

“Then…?”

“I guess?” Bethany heaved an enormous sigh. “I guess we’d better get started.” She fidgeted, shifting so that her back was to the rest of the ship, blocking Julian into the corner. “We have twelve more days on this thing, according to the manifest. That  _might_  be enough time to cover the ground we need.”

_I can’t believe I’m doing this. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I can’t believe I’m doing this._  “Okay. So. Juliet Hawke?”

“Juliet Astrid Hawke. You’re twenty-five years old. So, you were born in Bloomingtide, 9:05 Dragon.” She paused when Julian raised her eyebrows. “Oh Maker…okay…um…every age is one hundred years…”

As so the tutoring began. From waking until sleeping, Julian spent almost every moment at Bethany’s side (with the assurance that this would have been relatively standard behaviour for Juliet, as well). The young mage had her work cut out for her, and severely underestimated how long it would take to lay down nearly  _everything_  about their lives and the world they lived in.

The best, though, were the stories. By dinnertime they were exhausted by tutoring, and Bethany would take to telling childhood stories about her family to wind down for the night. 

“Carver and I were…I don’t know…ten, I think. And Mother and Father were off doing Maker knows what, and Jules—” she coughed weakly. “I mean you – were in charge of us. And I bet you can guess how much Carver just _loved_ when that happened. So he decided he was going to sneak off to the tavern and listen to the bards with one of his friends. Andraste’s flaming pyre, I had _never_ seen you that mad. He’d been gone ages. I think he told you he was going to go out to the shed and practice with his sword, so you didn’t even notice he’d gone. It was hours before we figured out where he’d gone, and she…you…just grabbed my wrist and dragged me along, swearing and fuming the whole way into town. There he was, sitting in the rafters of the Refuge with his friend, sipping casually from a pint of ale that he’s nicked from someone or other.

“She – you – just screamed and screamed. Carver looked like a kicked mabari. He was so sure his plan was _genius_ and you would never, ever find out. And on top of all of it, he was tipsy from the ale. You just picked him up over your shoulder and carried him home. When Mother and Father came home, he was puking into a pail in back of the house, and you made him explain to them _himself_ what he’d done. Mother almost killed him, but Father had to go back in the house to keep from laughing. That was Father…always laughing at things that absolutely mortified Mother. That was his way.”

Julian’s mouth was twisted in a sideways smile, staring up at the ceiling of the hold while Bethany laughed at the memory. “Carver’s a little shit, isn’t he?”

Bethany laughed again. “Yes. He absolutely is.”  

Breakfast seemed to be the only time the family came together. Well, the family and Aveline. Leandra ( _Mother. You have to call her Mother. Not Leandra. Not Mom. Mother,_ ) insisted that they sit down together – although with as tall as Carver was, they had no choice but to sit down in the hold – and they would break into whatever rations they had portioned out for that day.

And every day, the same question: “How are you feeling, darling?”

“A little better each day,” Julian would inevitably reply. One morning a few days from Kirkwall, she added: “Bethany’s been helping me piece things back together. The things I couldn’t remember, I mean.”

Leandra seemed wholeheartedly distressed at the idea of memory loss, but reminded them all that memory loss was far better than loss of her eldest child, and they went back to eating in silence for a while.

Aveline tried her best to change the subject, but she and Carver had spent the week previous comparing their experiences at someplace called Ostagar (which, if Julian was understanding correctly, had been an absolutely ghastly massacre only three or four weeks before,) and her conversational choices weren’t exactly cheery because of it. Her late husband had been a Templar ( _mage hunter, not Dan Brown novel character,_ ) and that made Bethany understandably uneasy. It devolved, as it always did, into Leandra – _Mother_ – telling stories of her privileged childhood in Kirkwall and reminiscing about her family’s enormous estate house. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have an overflowing love for Bethany, can you tell?


	3. Money for Nothing

            No one could stand to see Leandra cry. Not even Gamlen – who Julian was fully intending on beating the shit out of at first opportunity – could escape the intense guilt at having caused the tears. He was sputtering and flinging his hands around to try to deflect, but the red creeping up his cheeks was a giveaway.

            Julian, Bethany, and Carver stood together a few yards away, heads bent (Carver bent practically in half). “So it’s a year of hoping we don’t get arrested, or sitting on our asses in the Gallows until Gamlen magically comes up with the coin to get us in.” Julian shook her head. “Some choice.”

            “What a _loving_ uncle we have,” Carver spat.

            “Beth?” Julian glanced up and over to her left. “What do you say?”

            Bethany just looked forlorn. “I suppose,” she threw her hands up in resignation. “I’d rather not become a mercenary, if that’s alright with you two.”

            “Fair enough,” Carver conceded. “Objections, oh grand and exalted older sister?”

            “First of all, shove it,” Julian scowled up at her giant (adopted) baby brother. _The more time I have to spend with this kid, the more he reminds me of Marcus…_ but those thoughts never lasted long, because the feeling of her own brother’s hand in hers when the hospital monitor flat-lined was still the stuff of her nightmares.

            “Second of all, I actually agree with Bethany. As much as smugglers might be bastards to deal with, it’s better than having to slog around killing people for a year.”

            Of course, that single sentence showed how little Julian really knew about dealing with smugglers.

            If Julian had to pick – absolutely had to choose – a year of her life that was the most miserable, the _most_ depressing: It would be their first year in Kirkwall. Bethany spent every hour of their free time trying to find a bare whiff of magic that could have brought her here from home, or anything that might send her back; but there was nothing. The only thing they could come up with was time magic, but there was nothing about switching places involved in that research.

            After a while, their investigation lost steam. They were in deep enough as it was, with continued tutoring about family history and the world at large. They worked day and night paying off Gamlen’s debt to Athenril. And when that wasn’t enough, they were pulling Carver out of scrapes with local thugs. The end of that first year couldn’t possibly come fast enough, but when their contract was up, they suddenly realized that they had absolutely no idea what to do next.

            Carver started bothering Aveline about finding him a position in the city guard, but Julian and Bethany were less suited to that task. Bethany had no martial training beyond her magic (which she hardly needed, as she was _that_ good of a mage), and Julian was quickly finding that she fit in with the Lowtown crowd _just_ fine, thank you. They were discovering, though, that they couldn’t dither much longer. The coin they had made during their first year would only take them so far, and they weren’t about to force Leandra further into the pit of debt that Gamlen had subjected them to.

            Like so many other nights, Julian left the others by the fire and went to walk a circuit around their (miserable excuse for a) house to make sure no one had tagged them for a target. Snaking her way down the streets that made up their neighborhood, she found only one single thing out of the ordinary: a large (but horribly malnourished) brown and white dog, so big he was probably the same size, if not larger, than a small child.

            He perked his head up when she stopped a few feet away, and his little stub of a tail waved back and forth, but just once. He almost seemed to be smirking at her, teasing her for being tentative about approaching. “No need to be smug,” she muttered, shaking her head and taking a few more steps toward the dog.

            He chuffed out a bark that sounded distinctly like a laugh, then got up on his too-thin legs and padded over to her. He shifted his eyes all around them, then raised his head up and looked her right in the eyes.

            There was something there that Julian hadn’t expected. _Well, frankly, I expected the damn thing to attack me, but that’s apparently not what’s happening here_. He almost looked sad – or even lost.

            “You’re not supposed to be here, are you?” She asked quietly, kneeling down in front of him so they could be at eye level. “Somebody brought you here and then left you?” She guessed.

            The dog nodded grimly and nudged her outstretched hand with his nose. He was drier than he should have been, and thin beyond belief. The poor thing had been completely abandoned.

            “That’s okay,” Julian petted him once tentatively and then again when he took another small step toward her. “I’m not supposed to be here either.”

            He whined softly, as though he already knew.

            “You need something to eat,” she told him definitively, and put out both of her arms to him in invitation. “Do you want to come get something to eat?” Yes, it was another mouth to feed, but Julian felt a distinct tug somewhere inside her at the idea of this poor thing being left out in the street to starve to death. _Not on my watch_ , she decided. And it was punctuated when the enormous dog stepped right into her arms and nuzzled her shoulder with a happy shake of his head.

            They were only steps away from home, and Julian was feeding the dog scraps from her dinner plate before Leandra even realized he was in the house. Bethany dropped down in front of the dog as soon as she saw him, and even Carver perked up a little when he noticed him. “What are _you_ doing here?” Bethany cooed, scratching the dog affectionately behind both ears.

            “Another Ferelden stranded in the Free Marches,” Carver observed, patting the dog’s back. “Figures he would imprint on you.” He grumbled, shooting a grumpy look at Julian.

            “Don’t be jealous just because I’ve found the best dog in all of Thedas.” Julian paid him no mind, but happily kept feeding the dog scraps from her dinner plate, letting him rest his muzzle on her knee in between bites.

            “He’s your responsibility,” Leandra pointed out, trying her best not to kneel down in front of the enormous dog and snuggle the life out of him. “That means feeding him, too.”

            “I know how to have a pet,” Julian pointed out.

 

            Days later, however, Julian felt that maybe her pet was having _her_. He was by far the smartest dog she had ever met, and taking him out to walk around Kirkwall usually meant being accosted by every Ferelden refugee in sight. When he was with someone, walking around happily, everyone happily paid him every attention. When he’d been starving in an alley in Lowtown, no one had cared. It was enough to make Julian sick, accept that Otis (because naming him after her favourite childhood film made her feel a little closer to home) had taken to “accidentally” getting overexcited at the attention, knocking people clear on their asses by bounding around their knees. _Clever son of a bitch_ , she acknowledged with a smirk, after the third time he’d done it – and she’d finally realized that he was doing it on purpose.

            It was after just one such incident in Hightown, when Otis led Julian and Bethany down the streets happily, wagging his little stub of a tail as he went, that they first heard about Bartrand’s expedition into the Deep Roads.  

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome, friends! I'm delighted to be starting off this fic so close to the end of its sister piece. I hope you're all as excited as I am! As always, comments/kudos are welcomed with open arms and happy grins.


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